Of Marriage Fails and Cottontails
by iviscrit
Summary: Of marriage fails and cottontails... this is Farmer McGregor's untold story. Sequel to "A Drive in the Country." Humor. Please R&R!


A/N: The sequel to "A Drive in the Country"! I TOLD you I would get one written! Hope you enjoy the product of four hours of sleep and one of writing. :D

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><p>"Minerva!" Dougal McGregor said, face elated when she slowly trudged up to meet him in the radish field. "I'm so excited to see you! When do you want to have the wedding?" Minerva tried to smile and failed. "What's the matter? Has something happened?"<p>

Wordlessly, Minerva threw her arms around him. She was crying, though she tried to hide it. "I'm so sorry," she said, wiping her eyes. "We can't have a wedding."

"What do you mean?" Dougal said gently. "If you aren't comfortable with a big wedding we can elope, dear." He had never been quick on the uptake, Minerva realized, and she began to feel cross with him.

"No, no. You don't understand." Minerva straightened up. "Dougal, I love you. But we can't get married, period. The ministry has offered me a job in London, and-"

Dougal stared. "The ministry? What ministry? What do you mean?" The full significance of her words hit him at last. "What do you mean, we can't get married?"

"I'm sorry," she said again, furiously wiping at her eyes, but this time it was as much to conceal her face, which bore an expression that clearly said 'you moron', as it was to wipe away tears. "I should go. Damn it, I said I wasn't going to cry..."

Stunned, he cast around frantically for an explanation. "Is it someone else? That man from London?"

"God, no!" Minerva exclaimed. "Tom's just a friend. A very good friend who I would ordinarily want among your groomsmen, but it's not going to happen because there won't be any wedding. No, it's my fault, I should have known better, I should have known this wouldn't work."

"Your family is against it then?" Dougal felt as though the world had been turned upside down rather abruptly. "Your family loves me!" Minerva didn't have the heart to tell him of her father's apathy to the match, nor of her mother's passive-aggressive disapproval.

"No! Nothing like that. Please dear, let's part ways and forget about it all. You'll find someone else and move on. I don't enjoy hurting you like this." She bit her lip. "I'll write to you."

"Minerva, you can't just-"

"I'm sorry, Dougal. I really am."

"Can't you just explain yourself a little better?" He was frantically grabbing at straws now, thinking if he could make her stay a bit longer, he could perhaps change her mind.

"I really can't," Minerva said, and with that she kissed him on the cheek. "Goodbye. Try and forgive me."

There's a theory that when something bad happens, you associate your feelings on the subject with the setting it took place in. Everything at the site of the tragedy can be a memory jogger, and take you back to the moment you want to forget. Naturally this effect is much more potent when one is on drugs, but it must have been applicable in Dougal McGregor's case as well. Because as Minerva walked away, after having kissed him for the last time, a cottontail rabbit hopped across his path. And as he stood there, shaking, his heartbreak turning to a sense of injustice and then anger, he brought his hoe down upon the bunny, who, seeing that the human was in a world of his own, had decided to enjoy the radishes. Bunny-blood spilled onto the ground, dying the leafy radish greens a deep red, and Dougal became still more enraged as he saw his produce, soiled by the bunny he himself felled. Blindly he hacked at the bunny's corpse, and after a good ten minutes, he threw down the hoe, his sorrow forgotten and a demented gleam in his eye.

Yes, Minerva's rejection had affected him in more ways than she would ever know. She had unknowingly transfigured him from a light-hearted, simple young farm boy to a bitter man, cold and unfeeling to the plight of all rabbitkind. He forever associated the breakup with rabbits, and never once thought to seek counseling to rid himself of the unhealthy obsession with the creatures. No, he dwelled on it, until he viewed rabbits -specifically those of brown ticked fur and cotton tails- as the reason for his misery (which, by now it is safe to say, was very much self-imposed, as he never did move on). And he took that a step further once he realized a certain family of rabbits that lived close to Minerva's old home -before she moved to London, probably to be with that boy from school- was responsible for nibbling his prized cabbages and radishes. After Minerva left him, rather than brood for a bit, go out for drinks with friends, and move on by dating other women, he instead threw himself into his farming with a fervor that was unsurpassed by all the Caithness residents. But his pursuits took their tole. His frame, once stocky and well-built, turned old and hunchbacked. His brow, once smooth, now had frown lines from his constant scowling and sun exposure. And he did marry, but only once he had reached the age of fifty, and even then to a woman that paled in comparison to Minerva. Where Minerva had wit, Mrs. McGregor labored over fifth-grade reading. Where Minerva had charm, Mrs. McGregor was crass and boorish. Where Minerva had beauty, at least during her youth, it was apparent that Mrs. McGregor had always been plain, and in middle age she had all the wrinkles and crows feet and blemishes of an old hag. All who knew of Dougal's relationship with Minerva, and were still present for the wedding to Mrs. McGregor, talked extensively of the girl he could have had, if she hadn't so cruelly dumped him. It was decided that, in his bitterness, he had married a woman as bitter as he. And they were right; the two devoted their lives to a garden that thrived, and to exterminating the rabbits who dared trespass. Specifically, they began a feud with the rabbit family from "over the way," as Farmer McGregor would call Minerva's old house, a family they named "the Cottontails." And without exception, every descendant that resembled that poor first rabbit who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, the poor bunny who happened to cross McGregor's path after his rejection, was killed in the same manner. And whenever a young male rabbit with fairly long ears and a soft rounded body and a little cotton tail was born to the family, they shuddered and begged him to be careful, because "just look at what happened to your father." The rest is Peter Rabbit's story, the only one in the Cottontail bloodline who stole from the garden and lived to tell the tale.

_Peter Rabbit now is the successful published author of his memoir, "Peter Rabbit," available as a children's book and adult-human sized as well. He lives on the family estate in Caithness, unbothered by Dougal McGregor, who, after failing to kill Peter, spiraled into depression and turned to self-help classes._

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><p>AN: DID YOU LOVE IT? Say you loved it. No, really, because I had this idea LITERALLY after Pottermore, when I learned her ex was named MCGREGOR. Comedy gold. If you LOVED it, leave a review! If you didn't, leave one all the same. Thanks and come again. :D


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